Intangible Heritage in Colombia in the Midst of Armed Conflict and Unreached Peace

Abstract

After sixty years of armed conflict in Colombia, the wounds have left very deep marks within the representative social groups and their cultural manifestations. War impacted vulnerable populations, especially those rich in indigenous and black heritage. The chapter explores the case of the El Salado massacre in the region of Montes de Maria, Colombia, in which between February 16 and 22, 2000, a group of paramilitaries executed 66 people, including men, women, and children while the victims were forced to play their traditional music or the killers played the instruments after each brutal murder or rape. The chapter discovers how international and national legislation reached out late but finally recognized the brutality of one group against another, and how from the cultural heritage a community strives to forget and to prepare its next generations for the future, based on reconciliation and revaluation of its intangible cultural values.